Through the untiring efforts of Pat Lynch and the leaders and members of our Committee on Political Education (COPE), the PBA has experienced political success recently, particularly in getting the necessary funding to improve the quality of our police officers’ bullet-resistant vests and in getting important home-rule messages approved.

We also have right-thinking City Council members to thank for these successes, particularly Council speaker Christine Quinn, who felt strongly enough about the inequity of police pay that she appeared as a PBA witness at the PERB hearings on our last contract and testified about the outstanding job police officers did in her district. Needless to say, the PBA was pleased to see Ms. Quinn become the second most powerful person in city government when she ascended to the Council speakership a few months ago.

Speaker Quinn was appalled when the PBA first informed her that thousands of our members, more than half in fact, lack the best available level-III maximum-coverage bullet-resistant vests, and she made the issue one of her immediate priorities.

Shortly afterwards, we held a Sunday-morning news conference with her at which she called for the city to add money to the budget to purchase the 18,000 vests needed to protect all sworn members of the department. As a result, the additional funds were approved in the mayoral budget.The department says all vests should be delivered to all our members who need them by early next year.

The Council also approved pieces of legislation that Albany had sent back to the city for a home-rule message.

These bills — including the cancer-presumption legislation, a bill that would allow retired police officers to teach in New York City public schools after retirement without suspending their pension payments, and a bill that would allow police officers to take a cash payout instead of time for their terminal leave — could not be voted on in the State Legislature without first receiving Council approval. The legislation went to Albany and two of them — the cancer presumption and terminal leave bill — were passed by both houses and await action by the Governor.

It would not have happened except for the reinvigorated strategic relationship between the PBA and the City Council.